Cemetery overgrown, but not forgotten

Jul. 15, 2013

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Grass and weed-obstructed gravestones are a common sight at Hillcrest Cemetery, which was dedicated in 1926 as a privately owned cemetery for blacks. Over the years, ownership and funding issues have made tending to the cemetery a challenge. The nonprofit Save Hillcrest is working to solve these problems. / The Enquirer/John Johnston

PASSION FOR PLACE

The Enquirer is exploring how certain places have shaped our community personality, what we might learn from them and what some neighborhoods need to be healthy for next generations. Let us know what places you have passion for, your concerns and hopes for those places. If you are getting things done in your community and would like to write about your big idea, we’d like to hear about that, too. Email John Johnston at jjohnston@enquirer.com.

cemetery registration

In Ohio, every cemetery must be registered with the Ohio Department of Commerce. The exception: a family cemetery or cemetery in which no interments have occurred in the past 25 years. Basic types of cemeteries: • Operated by a township or municipality. Once registered, registration never expires. • Operated by a religious, fraternal or benevolent organization. Registration must be renewed annually. • Operated by corporations or nonprofit cemetery associations. Registration must be renewed annually. To determine if a cemetery is registered, call 614-466-4100 or visit www.com.ohio.gov/real.

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ANDERSON TWP. — Velmon Hitchcock grew up on West Seventh Street in the West End, the second-oldest of four brothers.

“He was just a normal guy when the Korean War broke out,” said his youngest brother, Charles Hitchcock of South Fairmount. “He got drafted and went in.”

The Army assigned him to the 159th Field Artillery Battalion, 25th Infantry Division and sent him to Korea, where the unmarried 27-year-old private first class died in combat on March 8, 1951.

It was a long time ago, but Charles Hitchcock, now 78 and the only surviving brother, remembers standing on the sloping grounds of Hillcrest Cemetery for his brother’s burial. He watched as soldiers shouldered their rifles and fired a salute.

At the time, the privately owned cemetery was just a quarter-century old, and Velmon Hitchcock’s granite gravestone stood ramrod straight.

Today, it tilts sideways amidst patches of weeds. Portions of the cemetery were mowed recently, but the overgrowth is waist-high in places, obscuring many of the markers of some 1,400 veterans who served their country from the Civil War to Vietnam.

More than 800 of them, like Hitchcock, were African-American. Most ended up at Hillcrest because they were indigent and were denied burial elsewhere. There are also about 700 nonmilitary graves.

Like many of the people buried there, Hillcrest has known hard times. The most recent challenge: More than 30 trees on the 14-acre property are dead or dying and must be removed.

“That is such a loss for that cemetery,” said Vicky Earhart. “That’s part of the reason it was so beautiful.”

And there’s another problem, said Earhart, Anderson Township’s administrator and a board member of the nonprofit Coalition to Save Hillcrest Cemetery Inc.

The estimated cost to cut and remove the trees is $30,000. Save Hillcrest, which took ownership in 2002, has only one-third of that.

The cemetery, on Sutton Road about a mile north of Coney Island, has long lacked sufficient funds to properly maintain it. It’s no longer an active cemetery and reportedly recorded its last burial in 1994.

“We work very diligently to try to gather enough money to keep the place respectable,” said Russell L. Jackson Jr., board president of Save Hillcrest and an Anderson Township trustee.

“It’s never going to be a thing of beauty under the current conditions we deal with.”

The dead trees are the latest sad chapter in the history of Hillcrest, which was dedicated in 1926 as a privately owned cemetery for blacks.

Hamilton County paid to bury indigent veterans there. Over time, though, responsibility for upkeep of the cemetery became clouded after the owners died and a cemetery association became defunct.

By the late 1970s, the cemetery showed signs of serious neglect. Vandals damaged graves and headstones. More damage was caused by erosion due to poor drainage.

News media reported on the cemetery’s plight, and community groups periodically led clean-up efforts.

In 2000 the reigning Miss America, Heather French, paid a visit.

A year later an Enquirer editorial railed against the “shameful neglect” at Hillcrest.

But no governmental body would take responsibility.

Jackson said that by law, the township can’t own a private cemetery, so he and others formed the Save Hillcrest coalition and took ownership. That paved the way for a restoration project involving the Ohio Army National Guard.

“It was in the best shape ever when the Guard finished,” Earhart said.

In the 10 years since, the grass has been cut by community service crews working out of the Hamilton County Probation Department. Save Hillcrest supplies the equipment, paid for by money it earns from six community recycling bins.

This summer, probation crews fell behind in mowing because of heavy rains, Earhart said. What’s more, the dead trees are dropping limbs that must be removed before the grass can be cut.

“If we had an endowment, we could take better care of it,” Jackson said. “There are all kinds of grants, but nobody wants to give a grant to dead people.”

Absolutely, said Don Bishop, past commander of American Legion Post 318 in Anderson Township. He was recruited by Jackson and Earhart to serve on the Save Hillcrest board.

“Every veteran buried in that cemetery should be recognized,” he said.

Earhart thinks about the untold stories and struggles of the veterans buried at Hillcrest. She thinks about the African-Americans who fought their country’s battles, then returned home to face discrimination.

Like Jackson, she has devoted many hours to the cemetery. A dozen years ago, her oldest son, Doug Earhart, and members of his Boy Scout troop filed the paperwork and got headstones for each veteran who didn’t have one.

Doug went on to serve seven years in the Army and now is a member of the Ohio National Guard.

Scouts still do good work at Hillcrest. Last year, for his Eagle Scout project, John Wilson of Troop 112 built a retaining wall at the flag pole.

That part of the cemetery looks tended.

But weeds grow high on the hillside above the flagpole, and the bare branches of dead trees form silhouettes against the sky. ⬛

I cover eastern Hamilton County communities, Clermont County and the Cincinnati Zoo, and write about local history. Email me at jjohnston@enquirer.com